You are old, Father William: Two renditions

In poetry workshops in the Master of Fine Arts program at UAA (whence I received my MFA in December 1996), we were asked to keep reading journals of stuff we were reading that “fed our work.” I spent two or three of those weekly journals reading & responding to a lot of children’s poetry, mostly what I found in The Oxford Book of Children’s Verse (ed. by Iona & Peter Opie).

A lot of earlier children’s poetry is rather lame to modern ears, because –

For a poem to be considered suitable for a child it was thought necessary that it should be edifying.

Here’s an edifying poem, version 1 of Father William:

The Old Man’s Comforts and How He Gained Them

by Robert Southey (1774-1843)

“You are old, Father William,” the young man cried,
“The few locks which are left you are grey;
You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,
Now tell me the reason, I pray.”

“In the days of my youth,” Father William replied,
“I remembered that youth would fly fast,
And abused not my health and my vigour at first,
That I never might need them at last.”

“You are old, Father William,” the young man cried,
“And pleasures with youth pass away;
And yet you lament not the days that are gone,
Now tell me the reason, I pray.”

“In the days of my youth,” Father William replied,
“I remembered that youth could not last;
I though of the future, whatever I did,
That I never might grieve for the past.”

“You are old, Father William,” the young man cried,
“And life must be hastening away;
You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death,
Now tell me the reason, I pray.”

“I am cheerful, young man,” Father William replied,
“Let the cause thy attention engage;
In the days of my youth I remembered my God,
And He hath not forgotten my age.”

That was a very popular children’s poem for a century or so, my book informs me. If it sounds familiar to anyone, that’s probably because of how it lost its popularity — it was superseded by the very famous poem that lampooned it: